Standards awaiting review

The following standards are awaiting review by the DfE standards forum. You can preview the draft version of these standards.

Standard Description Owners
Accessibility conformance All services, products, and websites must meet the current published WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) version to conformance level AA.
  • Andy Jones
  • Jake Lloyd
Digital product branding This standard sets out the branding approach that digital products and digital services developed within, or for, the Department for Education (DfE) must follow. It ensures that products are consistently presented to users, reflecting established design principles, brand guidelines, and user needs.
  • Andy Jones
Plain language We use plain language to help people to understand the services and content we create and publish in DfE.
  • Andy Jones

Proposed standards

The following standards are being proposed and drafted. You cannot view these standards at this time.

Standard Description Owners
Content Management Systems (CMS) Content management systems provide teams with the ability to manage content in products and services through user-friendly editors without having to make changes through source code.
    Data Access Control Data access control is a protective strategy that manages who can access, modify, or view specific data. It’s an integral part of cybersecurity and data management, maintaining the privacy, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive information through restrictions and permissions.
    • Saheel Sankriwala
    Data Decommissioning Data decommissioning is the process of retiring and removing data systems, applications, or services that are no longer needed. This involves ensuring that any data stored in these systems is either transferred to a new system, archived for future reference, or securely deleted if it’s no longer required.
    • Saheel Sankriwala
    Data Mapping In DfE data mapping captures all data, where and how it enters our estate, where it is stored, how it flows throughout the department and what purpose it is used for.
    • Saheel Sankriwala
    Decommissioning Standard
    • Mayura Annadate
    Devices Standard defining end-user devices to be used within DfE. The standard applies to devices used by DfE staff and contractors to access corporate (as opposed to sector or public-facing) DfE services and data.
      Metadata Management Effective metadata management ensures consistent organisation, discovery, comprehension, and utilisation of DfE’s data throughout its lifecycle.
      • Saheel Sankriwala
      Storing source code (remotely) This standard describes where DfE source code is expected to be stored within a remote repository, and how it should be licenced as part of our commitment to making our source code open and working in the open. This standard does not set expectations for local (on device) storage of source code.